Web

I started out developing websites for businesses over 15 years ago as a teenager. Although I later moved onto more advanced software development, I continue to have an element of website development and design in my work. I have worked on everything from simple WordPress CMS sites with a few pages, to large custom-built sites supporting multiple languages and e-commerce.

Website speed/performance optimisation is a particular interest. Site speed is increasingly important but often overlooked. It is now common on many sites for the majority of visitors to be visiting from mobile devices over 3G or 4G with unpredictable connections. I aim to get all sites I work on to load within two seconds for most users, and for a performance score of at least 80/100 on Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

My focus is on development of new sites and ongoing web master duties such as managing the hosting, performance, and SEO of sites. I have basic design skills but would bring in a web designer for sites with a larger design budget.

A niche news and reviews website for the Apple TV ecosystem, launched September 2017. Based on a WordPress theme, I optimised the site for faster loading times, and also made design tweaks and layout customisations. I continue to work on enhancements to the site, advising on SEO to help grow the readership.

A large website with a game downloads e-commerce store selling internationally. It has thousands of pages with localisations in a number of languages, and is supported by custom-built content management tools and backend. It makes good use of the latest HTML5 and CSS capabilities, in particular for the various game “mini-sites” which use animations, audio, and video to communicate the atmosphere and style of each game.

Online store for local walking and history books. Custom backend plus PayPal checkout. Design rather dated now – over a decade old!

I work with a number of languages for web development, depending on the requirements. On the backend: PHP, JavaScript/Node.js, or Java. On the front end I use the standard web technologies of HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and have experience with a range of front end libraries and frameworks such as jQuery, Vue.js, Backbone.js, and Angular JS. Don’t worry if this all sounds like an alien language to you, I can advise on the appropriate tools for the job!